


In This Dust We Find Our Bones

by aleberg9



Series: We Are All Wolves Here [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Kaer Morhen, Minor Character Death, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:54:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleberg9/pseuds/aleberg9
Summary: The Sacking of Kaer Morhen.Witchers on the Path get word of the massacre and rush home
Series: We Are All Wolves Here [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684921
Comments: 17
Kudos: 82





	1. Eskel

There is, thinks Alysious Beckett, a certain beauty in order. When things are in order, they run by the natural patterns which nature intended. Misfortunes which might seem like the work of fickle fate to the uneducated peasant, are in fact a part of a larger system of give and take, push and pull, that sets the whole world in motion. In order to see that pattern, and appreciate its beauty, required more than education, it required a certain kind of brilliance, which in Alysious’ mind few possess. Thankfully, he is one such genius.

The sorcerer frowned in frustration as he considered his latest project. As one of the chapter’s top biologists, he had been studying the natural world for quite some time and was considered to be an exceptional expert in the particular field of N _aturalis Lectio,_ or the process by which species adapt and survive. In other words, natural selection.

He had been working for several decades on chronicling the evolutionary changes of the _Draco Non Alatum,_ also known as wyrms, a species which up until recently had been doing very well. The reason for its recent decline was also the reason for Alysious’ most recent headache. And subsequently, the cause for his musings on the ‘order of things’.

Alysious had recently come to the conclusion that not only were Witchers bad for the survival of certain fascinating species like the wyrm, they were also anathema to the natural order of things. They were relics, fossilized brutes that clung to existence through their corruption of base magics and alchemy. Their time had come and gone and it was now more pertinent then ever to see them pushed into the confines of history once and for all.

It was for this noble cause that Alysious had temporarily lain aside some of his usual studies and had recently acquired a small tower on the outskirts of some nameless hamlet at the base of the Blue Mountains.

Inside that quaint little structure he had spent the last several years, carefully strategizing and assembling, along with a few key allies within the brotherhood, in order to finally accomplish this long over due task.

It was necessary, they all agreed, that this should be handled delicately, and with caution. Witchers were, after all, formidable brutes, though rather lacking in imagination, and some kings continued to hire their services even past their expiration date.

So key pieces of inflammatory literature for carefully passed around, published under pseudonyms of course. And bit by bit Alysious gathered the momentum necessary to put his plan in action.

He should have taken to the theater he thought, with all of the acting he had been doing lately. This thought made him chuckle softly to himself. He leaned back and run a hand over his impressively long beard. He took great pride in maintaining it, and it shone a burnished copper against his chest. His face, which was unlined and youthful, was finely sculpted with high cheekbones, which he thought were excellently suited to compliment his choice of facial hair.

Right on time, a hesitant knock sounded on his door. Smiling to himself, Alysious waved a quick illusion over his face, giving him the appearance of what he had been assured was the spitting image of a genial old man, and went to greet his visitor.

The local peasants had been grumbling to themselves for months now, about the foul beasts that lived int the mountains and the horrific things that they did there. And all it took to stir that resentment into action was a kindly old wizard, who would happily bless their expedition should they take up arms on this most holy mission.

The mob had been assembling for weeks now, and numbered close to two hundred. With his ‘blessing’, and the subtle help of five powerful mages, these peasants would have all the strength and rage of a full army. Like a tidal wave, no stone wall nor steel blade would be able to stop them, and if most of them didn’t make it back from their mission? Well, then they could rest in peace knowing they had died for a good cause.

* * *

Eskel was the first to return that year.

News of the sacking of Kaer Morhen had spread like wild fire across the continent. The public image of Witchers had been steadily declining for decades. From heroes to professionals to barely tolerated pest control, every Witcher on the Path had felt the sting of their souring reputation. So when a small band of triumphant peasants returns from the Blue Mountains, and begin telling tales of how they burned out the monsters of Kaer Morhen, their stories are picked up and ripple out from Kaedwen into the towns and castles of Temeria, Cintra, and Skellige and beyond.

Eskel had been steadily working through an infestation of drowners around the Buina Pass when he first heard the news. He was coming back to the tavern for the night when he entered the main room and a hush fell over the small crowd. He was used to causing a reaction when entering public spaces, so at first he paid it no mind, thinking he would just grab an ale from the bartender, report his progress, and retire. But as he made it over to the bar, a different texture in the conversation came up, and a sour scent of trepidation curdled through the air.

Eskel cut muttered scraps of conversation as he past.

“Do you think he knows…?”

“I heard they were all killed….”

“Don’t be stupid. He’s been working for us for three days.”

“Poor thing…”

“Don’t feel sorry. Good riddance if you ask me.”

Eskel felt an anxious shiver travel down his back. He couldn’t think of anything that would cause such a reaction. When he got to the bar, he was shocked to see the barman set down a tankard of ale unprompted.

“You’ll be needing that, I guess. It’s on the house.”

Usually such an offer would have filled Eskel with joy, now it only filled him with a heavy sort of dread. Things had to be really bad for a human to offer a Witcher a free drink with that kind of voice.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why exactly would I be needing this drink?” Eskel tried to ask diplomatically.

“You mean you’ve not heard?” The barman looked shocked and then strangely fearful. Whatever he was about to say was not going to be pleasant. Eskel was seized by the childish urge to stop him from opening his mouth. As if whatever bad thing had happened would disappear if it was left unsaid. “That Witcher keep, up in dem’ mountains over eastward, well, I guess it be your keep, what wit’ you’d being a Witcher an’ all…”

“Kaer Morhen? Whats happened to the keep? Speak up!”

“Well, sir, it’s been sacked.”

There was a moment where the world seemed to stop. Then everything spend up and before Eskel could process it he was out the door and back on his horse.

He had a long road to Kaer Morhen.


	2. Lambert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lambert arrives at the keep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes description of dead children

Lambert was the next to return that year.

He had been in Temeria when he got the news, and had promptly dropped everything to ride home as fast as he could.

He made the trip in record time, and then promptly wished that he hadn’t.

He was met with death.

As soon as he set foot on the trail that led up tot Kaer Morhen’s gate, he could smell the rot of dead bodies and the acrid scent of old smoke on the air. It stung his nose and burned his eyes. He watched as his feet continued to carry him up the path, and wondered what the fuck he was doing. Why the hell didn’t he turn back? Now, when he knew it was bad but before he had to see the worst of it.

When the gate finally came into view, the first thing that Lambert noticed was a familiar figure sitting hunched over on the lowered drawbridge. Eskel had gotten here before him.

At first, a swell of joy filled him at seeing a brother alive. He thought, _this isn’t so bad._ Then he caught sight of the bodies.

They were laying in the dry moat that encircled the curtain wall of the keep, so tangled and mangled that Lambert at first couldn’t make heads or tails of them. The stench of burning flesh was unbearable here, and scorch marks on the drawbridge and on the stone of the gate suggested some kind of blast. The doors, Lambert finally noticed, which were two feet thick of solid oak, were blown half off their hinges.

“What the fuck!”

Eskel finally looked up from where he had been staring at the ground. “Hello Lambert. Welcome home.” There was an unhinged quality to Eskel’s smile, a look which Lambert never would have associated with the normally collected Witcher.

“Eskel, what the fuck?” Lambert repeated. They were the only words that would make it past the the nausea rising in his throat.

Eskel made a shapeless gesture, opened his mouth to reply, and then crumbled back into his hunched position, head bowed between his bent knees.

“Fuck.” Lambert swore again.

Nothing in his life could have prepared him for the experience of walking through Kaer Morhen after he stepped past Eskel. He had spent the last several decades facing the ugliest parts of the world, from monsters to human violence. Before that, he had survived the grueling trials to become a Witcher when no one else in his cohort had. He was accustomed to death and violence in a way that humans could never imagine. None of that had prepared him for this.

Everywhere he looked, there were signs of violence. The stone walls of the keep which had always seemed impenetrable in his youth were cracked and blackened in places. The courtyards were strewn with rubble. And of course everywhere there were bodies.

In a daze, Lambert walked through the keep. Some strange, detached part of his brain couldn’t help but fall back on his training and morbidly began tracing the steps of the attack.

Littered along the front steps and in the entrance hall were signs of a desperate defense. Here the bodies of the trainers laid sprawled, some torn limb from limb.

For every dead Witcher, there was a pile of dead attackers.

As Lambert passed through the entrance to the keep and passed the obvious defensive line formed by the trainers, the corpse went from those of adults to those of children. The bodies of the children were the worst.

Small bodies of boys barely old enough to start training laid side by side with the youths who had obviously fought bitterly till the very end.

Like all of the adults at Kaer Morhen, Lambert had never paid much attention to the trainees, but their presence had been a constant hum of youthful chatter and life that had always made the halls of the massive keep ring. Even when those same small bodies were being carried out to the funeral pyres and death lay like a heavy cowl over the place, even when Lambert had raged and howled against all of the injustices done here, it had always been full of activity in a way that had been desperately welcomed after a year on the Path. Out in the world, on their own, Witchers kept to themselves out of preference as well as necessity. As a general rule of thumb, any kind of crowd activity around a Witcher usually meant violence. Coming back to Kaer Morhen, despite everything that Lambert hated about the place, had been like coming home.

Even the trainers, who Lambert still remembered as the demanding figures from his youth who used to heckle and harass the boys under their care until they got every move and every potion perfectly right, only to send them off to die during the trials or on the Path, even they had begun to inhabit a warmer place in Lambert’s heart. He had began to remember them not for their shouted commands to run faster or fight harder but their warm laughter during winter nights and their subtle support after a difficult year.

Seeing the men who had been his family, for better or worse, since he was seven, mutilated in such a way made something he hadn’t even been aware of shatter and break in his chest.

Lambert wasn’t sure how it started, but the next thing he knew he was screaming like he hadn’t since the Trial of the Grasses and was throwing everything he could get his hands on against the walls.

He wasn’t sure how long he could have kept the rampage up, he was feeling like at least the rest of the day would do, when all of a sudden Eskel was there and was prying the latest projectile from his hands.

As he was slowly made to let go of the chair that he had been about to chuck into the nearest fireplace, Lambert became aware of the words that were coming out of Eskel’s mouth, “Easy, Lambert, easy. Please. No more… No more violence. Lambert, please.” Eskel’s voice sounded like he hadn’t spoken for days. “Please.”

Lambert hated hearing that broken note in his brother’s voice, but he let himself be calmed down and led away. He didn’t think to ask where Eskel was taking him until they made the turn to take the stairs to the old trainer’s quarters. Here the violence was somewhat less visible, as if the battle hadn’t made it this far back into the keep.

“Eskel, why are we coming up here? What…?”

Eskel had just pushed open one of the bedroom doors to reveal a familiar old figure sitting on a wooden chair. Vesemir was bent over by the unlit fireplace, and barely looked up when Eskel, followed by Lambert, entered. Lambert, however, immediately pushed forward and knelt before his old fencing instructor.

“Vesemir, you old goat. What the fuck? I knew you were fucking invincible, how the hell are you alive?” Out of all of Lambert’s old teachers, Vesemir had always loomed particularly large, seemingly as unshakable and untouchable as the mountains themselves in the eyes of a young boy.

But now, instead of responding to Lambert’s profanity laden greeting with his usual calm reprimand, Vesemir seemed to shrink in on himself and turned away. Lambert finally noticed the ruined state of Vesemir’s clothing. The bandages that were wrapped around his waist, and the way his hands shook ever so slightly.

Lambert stood abruptly and turned to face Eskel. “What the fuck? What the hell is wrong with him? Eskel, what kind of shit is this? Huh?” Lambert waved his hands and even he wasn’t entirely sure if he was only asking about the frightening state of their teacher or the state of Kaer Morhen in general.

Either way, Eskel only shook his head and said, “Not here.”

He led Lambert out of the room and down to the kitchens. Those to seemed to have escaped some of the violence. At least there weren’t too many bodies.

After handing out a much needed drink, Eskel began to explain. About how he had gotten the news and ridden as fast as he could for home. About how by the time he had arrived, the fires had already gone out and all that was left was a ruined hulk full of bodies. About how at first he hadn’t known what to do, and so had sat in the courtyard frozen in place, until he had heard the faint sounds of someone struggling, and had ran up the steps to find Vesemir struggling out from underneath a pile of corpse. The old Witcher had been severely wounded, slashed through the abdomen, and had fallen only to be buried under a pile of students who had rushed to defend him as well as the opponents who had attacked them. Eskel had bandaged Vesemir’s wounds and brought him upstairs, but the old teacher had refused to speak the whole time.

Finally, Eskel had pulled himself together enough to explore, and had found that no one else in the keep had survived. In the basement, the mage Dogbert was found dead and all of his equipment destroyed. The Library had likewise been pillaged and burned in places. Even the animals and vegetable garden had been killed and destroyed, but Eskel had managed to find some of the other food stores still intact, as well as a healthy supply of alcohol, which was currently sustaining them at the moment.

Eskel had only vague rumors and conjecture to point to the possible identity of their attackers, but he was fairly certain that who ever had done it, there had been a lot of them and they had been assisted by more than one mage. They had come without warning, and had surprised a group of boys returning from running the Killer, their bodies were now in the moat. The trainers had heard the commotion and had come running, making a stand to stop the intruders from entering the keep, but they had been eventually overrun. Their bodies lay where they had fallen defending their home and the boys under their care. Many of the boys had stood and fought as well, but even so their bodies could be found littered throughout the keep, where they had tried desperately to hide themselves. No one had escaped.

Lambert swore. And drank. And then swore some more. Eskel only sat in silence. Neither of them slept that night.


	3. Geralt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt returns

Over the next several days, Witchers continued to trickle in. 

Some of them barely made it through the gateway before they collapsed in shock. Others screamed and raged like Lambert had. 

After a few hours they all picked themselves back off the ground and got to work.

Witchers were practical creatures if nothing else, and when all else failed they could always fall back on their training to take over when conscious decision making was too hard.

So they began the work of clearing the bodies from the keep, and set to clearing the evidence left by the attack. 

Several rooms, including most of the dorms, had been damaged extensively, making the very structure itself unstable and in some cases leaving great holes in the ceilings and walls where the elements could get in. So they concentrated on those parts that could be saved. Luckily, the kitchen was still fairly usable, and one of the first orders of business was taking stock of their food supplies and deciding what they would need to survive. Winter was still a long way away, but no one suggested they should return to the Path. 

Eskel continued to care for Vesemir, though he still refused to speak. Though he would accept small amounts of food, he didn’t leave his room and sat listlessly in his chair for most of the day.

Traditionally Witchers, and the boys who died in the trials, were given a funeral pyre, and they spent several days gathering wood to burn the bodies of the trainers. But when it came to the children, it seemed too final, too neat, to simply burn the bodies and watch them disappear in smoke. Though it risked attracting necrophages and other corpse eaters, such ugly death did not deserve to be wiped away. 

So perhaps out of some morbid need to memorialize or just sheer inability to process such a loss, the bodies of the children were arrayed in the moat surrounding Kaer Morhen. 

The bodies of the enemy were loaded on a cart and dumped in the woods. No one would remember their resting place. 

The work was slow going and still underway five days later when Geralt finally returned to the keep. He rode in on the back of another brown mare of the kind that he favored just as the sun was setting. Eskel, Lambert, and Jacek were still outside, trying fruitlessly to scrub the blood from the front steps. They stood up as Geralt came to a stop and dismounted from his horse, but didn’t go froward to greet him.

Eventually, the white haired Witcher collected himself enough to approach. He came to a stop in front of Eskel. There were no words or gestures of comfort that could lessen the impact of the devastation around them, so Eskel didn’t offer any. The look in Geralt’s eyes was the same look that had been in the eyes of every brother that he had watched come in through those gates during the last few days. There was nothing to do but to keep moving. 

“There’s food, inside. And the stables are still sturdy enough, you can put your horse away. And, well, most of the bedrooms are pretty drafty right now, but there’r some on the third floor that are still good, so you can take one of those. Or the east tower. It’s still standing.” Eskel offered, as if food and sleeping arrangements were the most important thing right then.

“Hmm.” Was Geralt’s wordless reply, and he made no move to go inside. Behind him, his horse whinnied and tossed her head.

“Wolf. Take care of your horse. That’s an order.” Eskel said. The worst thing, he had found, was how lost everyone seemed when they first came home. They just needed to keep moving, Eskel reminded himself. If they could just keep moving, maybe they could get through this.

But Geralt had never responded well to orders. He lifted his head and the dull look in his eyes was replaced with a desperate gleam. Eskel knew what he was going to ask before he even opened his mouth. “Eskel. How many?”

It was Lambert who stepped forward to reply. “Everyone. Everyone except Vesemir.”

“Vesemir?” Geralt asked, frantically. “Vesemir survived?”

Eskel sighed. Geralt had always been close to the old Witcher, he didn’t like to think how he would react when he saw him in his nearly catatonic state. Vesemir might not have died, but that didn’t mean he had survived. “Come on, for the last time put your damn horse away. Then I’ll take you to see Vesemir.” He said, and went back to scrubbing. 

Once Geralt returned from the stables, and after he was bullied into eating a few bites, Eskel led him up the stairs. 

Eskel heard the sharp intake of breath as Geralt stepped past him into the room and took in the state of their former teacher. 

Vesemir was seated in what had become his accustomed spot in his wooden chair in front of the unlit fireplace. One of the few things which could get a reaction out of him was trying to light a fire. Apparently he was determined to sit in the cold. A choice which did nothing to improve the pitiful image of heartbreak which he presented. The usually strong and solid Master Witcher reduced to a sad, fragile looking old man hunched in a dark room. 

Eskel was not expecting this reunion to go well. So far nothing had worked to resurface the old teacher that he knew out of the burnt out husk which sat before him. He also knew how well Geralt handled situations with even of whiff of emotional pain in them, and expected that the white haired Witcher would storm out again at any moment, overwhelmed at seeing his father figure in such a state. 

Instead, when Geralt knelt at Vesemir’s feet and tentatively called his name, the old Witcher finally stirred. It was like watching a statue come to life, shaking off all the accumulated dust. He turned his head and his eyes, which had been so dull, lit up. 

“Geralt.” Vesemir murmured, his voice rusty with disuse. 

Eskel felt frozen in the doorway, terrified that a wrong move would ruin the moment.

Geralt, for once, was the one to reach out a comforting hand. “Master Vesemir, It’s good to see you. Why don’t you come down, I’m sure the others would like to see you too.”

Vesemir shook his head, “No. The others are all gone. I’ve failed.” His shoulders shook, but he didn’t cry. 

Eskel felt like he was choking.

“No, Master. Not everyone. Come down and see. Please-“ Geralt’s voice broke. “There’s food. And…and beer. Come down, Please-“

Eskel couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around and left before he could hear the rest of their conversation. 

But later, when the remaining Witchers of the Wolf School gathered in the kitchen to eat, Vesemir came trailing in behind Geralt. No one remarked on his sudden appearance, Witchers were not ones for dramatic entrances, but a place was cleared for the old Master at the table and a bowl of stew was placed in front of him. It went unspoken that as the sole surviving teacher of the Wolf School, Vesemir was now the oldest Witcher in the keep, if not on the whole continent. 

Though it was only late spring, no one mentioned returning to the Path that year. Instead they stayed through the winter and did what they could to clear away the signs of death. 

The next spring, however, saw the surviving Witchers depart once more for the Path. With their school destroyed and any chance of making new Witchers gone, there was nothing else to do but return to their duty. After all, no Witcher had ever died in their bed. And the threat of looming extinction made no difference to a world that would never see Witchers as anything other than monster hunters.

So they scattered once more to the far reaches of the continent. Though the next winter the Wolf School returned to their mountain home according to tradition, other things were not the same. 

Few Witchers now went anywhere without their swords and armor. Whereas before, Kaer Morhen had been the one place where Witchers could leave their weapons in their room and relax without the weight of uncomfortable leather and chainmail, now they kept their defenses up even at home.

They also began to intentionally neglect their duties around the keep, and let all sorts of monsters roam perilously close. The trail likewise they let grow even denser and impassable then before. No human would find easy access to Kaer Morhen ever again. 

Furthermore, they took it upon themselves to find and destroy any map that displayed Kaer Morhen’s location. It would not stop those who already knew of it, but it would perhaps dissuade any casual visitors. Kaer Morhen was no longer interested in receiving guests from the outside world, and their gates remained firmly shut to anyone who did not wear the medallion of the wolf.

As time wore on, fewer and fewer Witchers returned to Kaer Morhen. Some of them announced with the onset of spring that they would not be returning the next winter. Others imply didn’t show up, and it was only through chance encounters and word of mouth that their brothers knew they were still alive. Sometimes a Witcher would return with another Witcher’s medallion, and they would know to add their name to the list of the dead. Sometimes, it could be years before a lack of news forced the others to conclude that they were gone. 

Out the remaining twenty Witchers to survive the sacking of Kaer Morhen, only four continued to make regular returns. Vesemir, who had only returned to the Path half heartedly anyways, returned to living full time in the keep, and only ventured out for supplies and small contracts to supplement his funds. 

Eskel, who had always been dutiful and steadfast, returned like clockwork as soon as the frosts began to show. He often brought with him odds and ends to help the repair work which he and Vesemir kept up.

Geralt, though he could sometimes disappear for a year or two in a fit of emotional turmoil, would always turn up sooner or later. Sometimes he would bring little odd mementos which he had gathered over the year, and his little knick knacks laid scattered throughout the keep like the crumbs of some disjointed story. 

Lambert, to everyone’s surprise, was almost as steady as Eskel. Despite his loud and constant claims that he hated being a Witcher and despised the place that made him so, he returned year after year. Between insults and colorful swearing he would ply the other Witchers with moonshine and gwent and bully them around the fire until their shoulders relaxed and they started trading increasingly wild tales. The times that he managed to get them really going, it was almost like they were home again. 

Around them, the massive keep loomed dark and empty, its long stone halls echoing with ghosts no Witcher would ever be able to exorcize. But in the little corner they carved out for themselves, sheltered from the freezing snow and the raging world, they could still sometimes feel safe.


End file.
